


everything's fine (but it's complicated)

by MissSunFlower94



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, More Zolf & Cel Airship Conversation Content, Post-168, Probably more like Post-169, Shippy if you Squint
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,247
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26253394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissSunFlower94/pseuds/MissSunFlower94
Summary: ""What about you?""What?""What was your ‘everything’s fine’?"Zolf pauses. Then, with a short, incredulous laugh, looks sidelong at Cel. "You know… I don’t remember.""Zolf tells Cel more about Mr. Ceiling
Relationships: Celiquillithon "Cel" Sidebottom & Zolf Smith
Comments: 7
Kudos: 58





	everything's fine (but it's complicated)

**Author's Note:**

> My last Zolf and Cel fic: SAD CEL FEELINGS
> 
> This Zolf and Cel fic: SAD ZOLF FEELINGS

The Cel that finds Zolf on the deck of the Vengeance is as sober as he is, which is more sober than the rest of the crew by far. He supposes everyone else has the right to want to drink _that_ experience out of their mind, and has left them to it. He nods to them absently, gestures to the chair opposite him, a small card table between them. Cel returns the nod in acknowledgement and settles in.

Out of the corner of his eye, Zolf notes that they’re still a little pale but holding it together. He wants to tell them they don’t have to, but the deck – quiet as it is right then – is probably still too public for the breakdown they deserve. They notice his gaze and shoot him a smile that, although small, seems to be genuine. He returns it.

The sun is low, beginning to shift everything to the gold hues of early evening. Sunlight catches on Cel’s hair, making it glow like a candle flame. He thinks they’d like the comparison but he’s not about to voice it. He doesn’t say anything yet, just picks at the woodgrain on his, largely untouched, tankard. Cel has picked theirs up a few times since they sat down, but he notices they also have yet to drink.

“So,” they say, dragging the word out until it fades into silence. For a minute, Zolf thinks they’re not going to pick back up but when they do their voice is deceptively light. “You said you had experience with stuff like this, then? Still want that story.”

He snorts. “Not like this, specifically. Don’t think I’ve ever had to deal with anything like this before – and hopefully never will again.” Cel’s laugh is a short exhale. “But what you were sayin about thinking you might be in a dream…. went through something like that.”

“Yeah?” Cel makes a show of settling in further, looking at him expectantly. He chuckles.

“Right. Told you about Mr. Ceiling, right?”

They consider. “Yeah. Lots of brains, controlled the banks, all that. Built by Mr. Henri as kind of a lesser version of what Shoin- well, according to Shoin which, obviously, can be taken with some skepticism. Though, all his horrid- horrible actions aside, it was pretty impressive stuff – but I suppose I didn’t really see the Mr. Ceiling so I can’t really say how much lesser it was but-” They catch Zolf’s too-patient expression and clear their throat. “That stuff, yeah. You destroyed it. Crashed the banks.”

“Pretty much,” he says. “Well, we sort of destroyed it twice. Kind of. First time, we fought something looked kinda like what Shoin had done with the pipe organ. All sorts of mechanical nonsense. We destroyed it, building came crashing down, we got back to the surface and everything was fine.”

Cel blinks. “What do you mean?”

“Just that.”

“Like the banks and all that?”

“Like everything,” he says. He leans back, looking at the shapes in the clouds. “We went back to where we were staying and- and everyone was cheering.” He snorts again. “Like we were heroes or somethin. That really should have been the first sign.”

“The first- oh.” Cel inhales sharply. “Oh, I _see_.”

Zolf bites his lip to keep from laughing, knowing the bitter sound wouldn’t come across the way he means it. Of course, Cel catches it quicker than any of them did. He wonders, not for the first time, how things might have been different if they’d been around from the start. Remove Bertie from the equation, get Azu and Cel in his place. It’s a useless fantasy, the kind he tries not to indulge in as it invariably turns to imagining a world with Sasha still in it.

“Got more obvious from there,” he says presently, shaking himself. “Hamid got a telegram from his family with everything he wanted to hear from them. Sasha-” He swallows. “Sasha’s, um- someone who had been very awful to her was arrested. Things like that.” In this, as in everything in Zolf’s opinion, Bertie need not feature.

They hum. “What about you?”

“What?”

“What was your ‘ _everything’s fine’_?”

Zolf pauses. Then, with a short, incredulous laugh, looks sidelong at Cel. “You know… I don’t remember. Something with the legs, I assume. Mr. Ceiling had made me a pair that I had no interest in using, for obvious reasons.” Cel raises their eyebrows. “Obvious to most people.”

“I enjoy not being most people, then,” they say, sitting a little straighter. Zolf has to smile.

“Yeah, I’d gathered that.” He looks away again, taking a deep breath. He genuinely can’t remember what was offered to him in that fantasy world, not in any specifics in any case. Nothing that was particularly memorable it would appear. What does it say about him that an algorithm of hundreds of thousands of brains couldn’t work out what he wanted?

 _Zolf cares a lot_ , Mr. Ceiling had said. _You’re lucky to have a friend like him, Sasha._

Maybe that was it, he thinks. Maybe it was just… a world where they survived. A world where they made it out of every danger safely. A world where he kept the people he loved safe, kept everyone together.

He feels Cel’s eyes on him, but they don’t prompt him to continue. He brushes his thumb against the face of Feryn’s ring. “Anyway, it was startin to look odd, but it wasn’t until Wilde mentioned the whole simulacrum business being solved that it really hit. Well, that and- someone Sasha knew was one of the, um, brains in Mr. Ceiling and he managed to get a message through. Go back – get out. Somethin like that. We went back and everything had frozen from when we had first tried to destroy the thing.”

Zolf shrugs. “We destroyed it, again. Released the elementals that were powering it. The rest you know.” He shoots them an apologetic smile. “I’m not the storyteller Hamid is.”

Cel is indeed looking at him, their expression sober. They’re subdued around him, Zolf has long since noted. He hopes that means they’re more comfortable with him, and not less. “I’m- glad I wasn’t there for that,” they say quietly. “I don’t think I would have taken it well.”

“Hamid didn’t, either,” Zolf says, rather than ask what they think Mr. Ceiling would have offered them, what it would have meant to walk away from it. With Azu, he might be able to guess but Cel- they’re still a mystery to him in many ways. “It was- it was a lot for all of us to deal with.”

They’re silent together for a minute. He isn’t sure what Cel had wanted out of the story but he doesn’t think he gave it to them. That’s a common disconnect between them and he wishes he knew how to fix it, or at least that it didn’t bother him as much as it does.

“Well, I guess I’m glad this,” Cel gestures to the ship around them. “Was all real, at least.”

Their face twists up a little as they say it, aware of the ridiculousness of that sentiment. Zolf laughs and a second later, Cel joins him. He picks up his full tankard and holds it toward them. “To taking our wins where we can,” he offers.

Here, they’re on the same page and Cel grins, grabbing their own mug and clanking it against his. “I’ll drink to that.”


End file.
